he assumption that hate speech - and such performative hate acts as marching around with flaming torches, swastikas and other paraphenalia of past genocides - can be tolerated in a free society as the price of free speech is, I have realised, a dangerous illusion. The idea that we can tolerate a constant barrage of lies - that we can indeed tolerate the careless use of lies by ourselves - as part of a process of ascertaining something like truth by constant shadings and that we should not pursue the closest possible approximation of truth we can attain is also dangerous.

We cannot tolerate intolerance - which is in some measure a paradox but so be it. We cannot allow hate speech to take over public space. We have to argue back against any ideology whether religious or racial which says that certain groups have nothing to say worth hearing.

We do not have arms - we do not have the national press or national broadcasters - it is likely that we will be silenced. At the very least, we can call out the hypocrisy of those who silence us and call it free speech.

ou make a compelling case for action more direct and substantive than "We have to argue back". Consequently, that conclusion comes out of nowhere and contradicts all that has come before it. Every paragraph preceding that declaration has been spent detailing how argument is insufficient, ineffectual, because its rules are not accepted by those we would be arguing against. For what is the difference between opposition which we know before we begin will be inadequate, and acquiescence?

If we want to do any more than congratulate ourselves about our own scruples - if we want to achieve anything - I suggest that liberalism needs to accept that occasionally, in extremis, inconsistency is a price worth paying when it is necessary to prevent the entire well of public discourse, of civil life, of fundamental human rights from being ineradicably and terminally poisoned. I suggest that we might usefully reconsider the strength of the taboo surrounding the phrase and concept "by any means necessary".

Hate in America has become commonplace. What can we do to stop the hate?

A presidential candidate wins election after denigrating Muslims, Latinos, women and people with disabilities. A young white man opens fire and kills nine African Americans who welcomed him into Bible study at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, telling his victims, "I have to do it." A Muslim woman is seated on a bench in front of a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., when a woman begins screaming anti-Muslim epithets. A swastika and other anti-Semitic graffiti appear at an elementary school in Stapleton, Colorado. A lone gunman carrying an assault rifle and a handgun storms a well-known gay club in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others.

​Bias is a human condition, and American history is rife with prejudice against groups and individuals because of their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. As a nation, we've made a lot of progress, but stereotyping and unequal treatment persist.

Europeans don't understand this, because their "hate" has always been "dislocated" geographically and financially.

Until 1M sorta, kinda "white" people migrated to the continent from Syria AND west Africa. Before WWII, immigrants were select "commonwealth" citizens. After WWII, immigrants were select "commonwealth" citizens.

What demographic traits do the "legal" immigrants share? You don't know. You don't give a shit.

within the contrains of "democratic rules", you people best be rewarding national and EP office holders who represent the "social democracy" agenda you sorta, kinda claim is a "progressive" ideology of governance.

That means, you must have confidence, or tust, that your preferred candidate will exercise a vote to execite a particular agenda. Why do I say this?

Because so little of eurotribe commentary refelcts knowledge of local political objectives which constitute national policy.

So many are accustomed to deduce, rather than induce, federal gov't (which is a purported fiction) and national gov't legislation, limits of one's own civil discourse AND authority.

Imported and tortured a work force
And never healed the wounds or shook the curse off
Now the grown up Goliath nation
Holding open auditions for the part of David, can you feel it?

...
Pioneered so many ways to degrade a human being
That it can't be changed to this day
Legacy so ingrained in the way that we think;
We no longer need chains to be slaves
Lord it's a shameful display
The overseers even got raped along the way
Because the children can't escape from the pain
And they're born with poisonous hatred in their veins

Neoliberalism has demolished Hayek's theory of markets. Markets are not free: they are controlled by a wealthy minority of state-sized corporations. Markets are not efficient: they generate mountains of waste as corporations walk away from every abandoned disaster, expecting someone else to clear up the mess. Markets are not competitive: mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and buyouts reduce competition and choice for the consumer. Multinational corporations and international banks so dominate national governments that criminality is tolerated and, in the case of banks, even accepted as normal.

The 2008 crash showed that only the insiders of the financial services industry know what is going on. When a combination of incompetence and greed wrecked the international economy, taxpayers/consumers had to fund a colossal bailout. If big government hadn't organised a rescue, the neoliberal marketplace would have disappeared up its own rectum. The "market economy" is not an "objective science". Hayek's big idea is fatally flawed.

I don't know if Hayek would be much better than most of our present neoliberals and conservatives. They deal with the problems of neoliberalism almost entirely by blame shifting, obfuscation and denial. And, of all defenses of one's psyche, denial is the most powerful - except when it fails it so often fails catastrophically.

Something I found interesting is his observations on his kidnappers, who he could study pretty freely after converting to Islam.

The leadership was arabic and disgruntled, educated men. Among them a man who claimed that if he had stayed in Libya he would have been a minister today.

The suicide bombers were all outsiders, not local recruits. Suicide attacks appears to be partly a way to deal with recruits who are dissatisfied with the not so glamorous life in the desert. There is an interesting bit with a black man from southern Mali who opted out of a suicide mission and as a result got mistreated - worse sleeping accommodations, less food, etc. There is also a bit with another man from West Sahara who was a bit older then the rest and had skills, like cooking and car maintenance as well as the habits of a man who really knows the value of a penny, taking car of cars, doing proper maintenance, cleaning up after himself etc. Obviously, such a man is very valuable in running a guerilla war, but it was not appreciated, because it showed an attachment to the world. Eventually he got sent of on a suicide mission.

The local recruits, Tuaregs, mainly joined because of hatred of the Mali government, they knew much of the desert and little of religion. When Al-Quaida took cities they could recruit more, as otherwise they are hard to find for willing recruits. The leadership gave the Tuaregs older guns and kept the Kalashnikovs for other recruits. Probably suspecting that some might drop out and instead join the more secular independence guerillas.

There was s visible hierarchy between arabs, tuaregs and black africans. Officially, this wasn't the case but it was visible.

And then something that stuck out but isn't related to the recruits. The prisoners were used to star in various movies, including one were they were dressed up in orange jump suites to make them similar to Guantanamo prisoners. Afterwards Johan Gustafsson objected on the grounds of a) not being american b) being opposed to the Guantanamo prison and c) the prisoners in Guantanamo being tortured and this wasn't the case for these prisoners who were kidnapped but otherwise lived the same poor desert existence as their guardians. This didn't seem to matter for the director of the movie though.

Astonishing one goes by motor bike to such a hostile region, with great lack of knowledge.

Even after his elongated vacation in the desert, Gustafsson has no sense of direction what happened to him in Mali and the politics of AQIM, France, Areva, Niger, uranium mines and the effect of NATO's bombing of Libya and the butchering in its aftermath. He has little knowledge of the Tuareqs and the stronge drive for an independent state called Azawad.

I just got some Italian customs forms to fill in for a book order from Israel. This made me realize that I should start getting ready for Brexit. Does anybody know any good (non-Amazon) sites for ordering English-language books from the EU? Ireland?

I generally use Amazon.fr, in the "Livres anglais et étrangers" section; easier (no USD/EUR exchange computation) and faster than Amazon.com.

Depending on where you live, Amazon.it also has a "Libre in altre lingue" section.

Outside of the Amazon hydra, you'll find a "Livres anglais et étrangers" section on fnac.com, or, for Belgium, fr.fnac.be (or nl.fnac.be if your Flemish is any good). Another French retailer with "books in English language" section is decitre.fr; also check lalibrairie.com, a network of independent bookshops. Of course, delivery to Italy will cost extra...